Cox caps rally for Cougars

December 11, 2005|JEREMIAH HAWN Tribune Staff Writer

Although he wasn't the tournament MVP, Tyler Cox was easily the hero of the Blood, Sweat and Tears Super Dual at Washington High School. With his team down 39-35, Cox needed to either pin Pat Pitcher from Winamac or run up the score for a technical fall at 125 pounds to give New Prairie the win over the Winamac Warriors in a battle of tournament unbeatens. With every eye in the gym on him, Cox hooked his opponent's ankle, threw a side and three-quarters headlock on him and pinned him in 1:35 to cap a furious comeback by a determined bunch of Cougars. "I saw the kid putting his head down, so I thought it would be a great move to run," said Cox. "So I tried it out and it worked." Winamac raced to an almost unreachable 30-0 lead with consecutive pins by Zach Finley (130), David Minix (135), Bryan Shank (140), Tyler Fox (145) and Don Perkins (152) to start the match. But team captains Phil Oudhuis and Nick Kraus pulled things together for New Prairie. "Everyone was kind of down after the first five pins," said Cox. "But our captains (Kraus, Oudhuis and Bryan Dolezal) came up to us, got us together and told us that we could still win." Oudius (160) got the Cougars on the board with a technical fall over Zach Garrow, followed by Kraus (171) pinning Josh Wielochowski. Andrew Pavolka (215), Dolezal (275) and Aaron Jeske (103) continued the charge with three straight pins and Richie Kaminski (119) pinned Jacob Chodzinski, setting the stage for Cox to win it. "I didn't panic, but if it had gotten any worse, my head would have exploded, I think," said New Prairie coach Wes Hobart. "I told Cox, 'This is why you compete in the sport of wrestling. This is what you came out to do.' He's a junior, and he's been around a lot. He's a fantastic kid to have on your team. "I'm very happy. This was a nice Christmas present." Despite the tough loss, Winamac coach Steve VanderAa was optimistic about his young team. "I told our guys that the difference in this match will be if we can get more pins than they do," said VanderAa. "If we could stick their guys and stay off of our backs. We got the first part done. We got the pins we needed, but we didn't stay off our backs. "We've got some young kids, only one senior on the team. But something I'm excited about is that three of our freshmen went undefeated today. That's pretty awesome for freshmen to come into a tournament like this and go undefeated." Washington finished at 1-4 in the tournament. Despite the tough day, Kyle Long (145) finished the day with a 5-0 record with five pins. But because of a lack of wrestlers, the Panthers had to forfeit three weight classes to lose 18 points for each match. Michigan City's Alton Anderson (119) was named tournament MVP. The tournament was named after a '70s rock band by former Washington wrestling coach Carl Evans, who started the tournament 13 years ago. "We took that name on because in wrestling, there's always going to be bleeding," said Evans. "We depend on sweat to make weight and from all the hard work and for the tears from the agony of defeat."